China’s official toll on Saturday mounted to 184 in the deadliest communal riots between minority Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in its northwest strategic Xinjiang region bordering India.

Releasing the casualty figures, the information office of the regional government on Saturday said 184 people had died in the riots that broke out on Sunday in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.

Giving the first breakdown of the victims of China’s worst-ever unrest in three decades, the state-run Xinhua news agency said that among the dead, 137 were Han people, China’s dominant ethnic group, 46 were Uighurs and the other was a man from the Muslim Hui minority.

Twenty-six women from Han community and one from Uighurs were among the victims.

The riots erupted after a crowd of Uighurs, protesting over a brawl between Uighur and Han Chinese labourers at a factory in south China, went on a rampage prompting a police crackdown. The protesters were demanding a probe into the last month’s incident that had left two Uighurs workers dead.

China’s top police officer had on Thursday vowed to take firm and resolute actions against rioters.

“All the thugs in the riot should be severely punished in accordance with law, otherwise we will let the victims and their relatives down,” Meng Zianjhu, state councilor and public security minister, had said.

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